


Sing Me A Song Of Forgetting

by crown_of_weeds



Series: Be OK [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Ableism, Canon Disabled Character, Developmental Disability, Disability, F/F, F/M, Learning Disabilities, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-19
Updated: 2011-04-19
Packaged: 2017-11-15 07:50:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/524903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crown_of_weeds/pseuds/crown_of_weeds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In her bedroom, Brittany turns the music up, stops trying to track or remember anything at all, and reaches out with her fingers and toes. The music shimmers over her skin and, piece by piece, Brittany puts herself back together. (Takes place during seasons 1 & 2)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Oh hey look. It's a fanfic!

 

 **Sing Me A Song Of Forgetting** (1/2)

 **Title** : Sing Me A Song Of Forgetting  
 **Author** : Crown Of Weeds  
 **Rating** : R? For the most awful smut scene ever, probably (part 2). Language.  
 **Word Count** : 7779 total. Part 1 is 2422.  
 **Spoilers** :Through 2.16. Speculation about Brittany's extra-curricular activities based on the promo for 2.17  
 **Pairings** : Brittany/Santana, Brittany/Artie, Brittany/Kurt  
 **Warnings** : Brittany is characterized as having Bad Brains, and the other characters can occasionally be ableist assholes.  
 **Disclaimer** : I don't own _Glee_ , nor do I own _Next To Normal_ from which I have taken the title. I put them back when I'm done, and I don't make any money off of anything ever.

 **Summary** : In her bedroom, Brittany turns the music up, stops trying to track or remember anything at all, and reaches out with her fingers and toes. The music shimmers over her skin and, piece by piece, Brittany puts herself back together.  
  


 

Brittany likes it better when they think she's joking.

 

Brittany isn't entirely sure that she's ever told a joke on purpose, but when they think she's telling a joke they aren't thinking she _is_ a joke, and she'll take that. It would be nice if she could controlit, turn it on the way Santana can can turn on sexy and always having them laughing _with_ her and on purpose, not just as a lucky accident. 

 

It would be nice, but the nice things always fade in and out of her life and leave her blinking after them, wondering where they went or feeling vaguely like she's maybe forgetting something. Brittany's great at forgetting. On the one hand, lunch is always a surprise, so, awesome. On the other hand...

 

On the other hand, she really did forget how to get herself out of the Glee room last year. Sure she blamed the bottle of cough syrup she could feel poking her shin through her backpack, but what else was she supposed to say?  _Hey guys, know what? I_ LOVE  _being sick. Colds are awesome. Want to know why? Because when I'm high on cold meds everyone expects me to forget things. Teachers write “feel better” next to the F's, and Santana is nice and smiles really gently at me when she does my locker combination, and it doesn't matter that I'd rather watch Disney Channel than Real Housewives._

 

_For a few days, it doesn't matter._

 

Brittany's forgetful, not an idiot, and her lie earns her an awesome costume and a chance to dance in the library, so, awesome. It doesn't work, but Brittany is also used to that, so she runs her hands reassuringly through Artie's hair and teases Kurt that maybe the  _Single Ladies_ dance would have been a better choice. Kurt blinks at her, then snorts and smiles and slips his hand into hers, and Brittany wraps herself up into his fingers.

 

*****

 

Coach Sylvester had told her to join Glee Club (and Brittany always remembers to do exactly what Coach Sylvester tells her) but it had been Quinn's idea first, she thinks. Quinn is scary, scarier than Coach Sylvester because she talks less and the words she uses are uglier. Brittany's legs might hurt after an extra twelve laps, but that will go away. The things Quinn does don't. So of course she doesn't even blink when Quinn announces that Brittany, who only ever hums the music from movies to herself in the shower, is doing backup for her audition. Santana wraps their pinkies together and reminds her about the dance the Glee Club did at the assembly— _as if Brittany has been able to stop thinking about it—_ and “you'll have some fun doing their dances, Britt. Also? We'll blow them away. I doubt any of them can do that thing you do with your hips.”

 

*****

 

_That thing with her hips_ is discovered by accident at a party before freshman year. She's bouncing along between bodies in someone's basement, rubbing the velvety hem of her top between her fingers and letting Lady Gaga drill into her bones.

 

_I've had a little bit too much_  
All of the people start to rush.  
Start to rush babe.  
A dizzy twister dance  
Can't find my drink or man.  
Where are my keys, I lost my phone. 

 

This is a song about being _drunk_. She'd figured it out about ten seconds in. She is so _awesome_. And it's funny, all of these drunk people dancing around and shouting along to a song about just that. It would probably be even funnier if Brittanywere drunk too, but Santana always steers her away from that corner of the floor, batting away people who shoved red plastic cups at Brittany and giving them disgusted glares. “You wouldn't like it,” she whispers to her. “It makes your mouth sting—it's like medicine, except grosser. And it smells bad.”

 

“You seem to like it,” Brittany had argued at the first party. Yeah, Santana liked a lot of things she didn't, like her weave or history class. And yeah, Santana always seemed to just _know best_ and had always had a pretty good grip on what Brittany did and didn't like. But it also didn't seem fair that she got to decide that Brittany wouldn't like something—something which seemed potentially very fun—without even letting her try it first.

 

Sanatana had laughed and yanked Brittany into the center of the crowd. “Of course I do!” she yelled over the noise. “But baby, I told you it was like medicine. You aren't sick, you don't need it.”

 

Brittany twisted her hips, following the notes on the speaker with her pelvis. “You aren't sick either,” she argued. Santana didn't say anything, and the half-light made it hard to tell for sure but Brittany thought for a second that she was frowning. “Are you? Are you sick, _are you sick_ Santana, because I don't want you to be.”

 

Santana looped her arms around Brittany's neck and put them back to swaying jerkily. Brittany thought that her mouth was technically smiling now, though she didn't look any happier. “You remember those commercials on TV, Britt? The ones that are in black and white and really slow and sad for most of it, and then at the end a lady pops a pill and starts smiling and baking bread and running along the beach at the ocean into the sunset? You remember what they're for?”

 

“Antidepressants. Are you depressed, Santana? Is your head sick? Why didn't you tell me?”

 

Santana's laugh was maybe more like a choke. “No. Well, I mean, not more than anyone else here, and that's the problem. People here, we don't need pills to make ourselves feel better, but sometimes we just feel so _bad_ that we need something a little like that. That's what the alcohol does for us. It's like cough syrup, right? It doesn't fix everything, but for a few hours things are easier, things feel better.”

 

“But you said it was gross,” muttered Brittany, shrugging out of Santana's arms and bouncing her shoulders along as the song changed. Santana was starting to look annoyed.

 

“Yeah, it is. Like cough syrup, okay? It's gross, and you only take it when you need to feel better, and then it's still gross but also totally worth it.”

 

“Well, sometimes I need to feel better too. So why—”

 

“Oh my GOD. Brittany. Listen to me. Yeah, you get upset sometimes. You also _get over it_. You don't need medicine to be happy, you don't need to get drunk to have fun. You're _so fucking lucky_ , okay?”

 

Santana was mad at her, and Brittany hated that almost as much as she hated that Santana didn't even give her a chance to apologize and promise to drop it before she had grabbed a nearby boy and ground him into the corner.

 

So Brittany stopped asking for drinks and tried to drown in bobbing limbs and thumping music, and she is still trying three parties later.

 

_What's going on on the floor?_  
I love this record baby but I can't see straight anymore.  
Keep it cool what's the name of this club?  
I can't remember but it's alright, alright.  


Brittany keeps on bouncing, twisting her spine and snapping her shoulders against the beat, and then Santana calls her name and she sort of dips and swivels towards the sound.

 

Santana's mouth falls open.

 

“Wow. Okay, Britt, do you think you can do that thing with your hips again?” __  
  
Just dance. Gonna be okay.  
Da-doo-doo-doo  
Just dance. Spin that record babe.  
Da-doo-doo-doo  
Just dance. Gonna be okay.  
Duh-duh-duh-duh  
Dance. Dance. Dance. Just dance.

 

It turns out that she can

 

*****

 

Brittany has this addicting habit of breaking Santana's heart in the hallways.

 

The heart-breaking hadn't started until high school, when they actually had lockers in the hallways and time to spend there, but Santana is pretty sure that the looks and whispers started in middle school. And she'd dealt with them there just fine. No one was stupid enough to say those things about Brittany around either of them after a while, and she thought she'd been able to keep Brittany from picking up on it. She was pretty sure that, what with her new HBIC status ( _thanks Quinn_ ), she'd be able to keep those words away from her forever.

 

Then Brittany decided that buying _cupcakes_ in the fucking _cafeteria_ with fucking _Becky Jackson_ was a _good idea_ , and Santana knew that it would come sooner rather than later.

 

But she is working so hard at postponing it, bullying it into hiding, and she isn't paying enough attention when Brittany is trying to explain yesterday's episode of _Secret Agent Oso._ The topic of conversation is Santana's fault too, because she had made the mistake of admitting that she'd been more focused on _getting Brittany off_ than on whatever had been on the blonde's TV last night. So Santana takes her punishment resignedly, doing Brittany's locker combination while the blonde rocks back and forth a little when she gets to the good part.

 

“So after he helped Anna make her Valentine's day card—which was super cute, Santana, we should make some this year, 'k?—Secret Agent Oso was trying to teach Andrew how to blow bubbles, except _he_ was having a hard time because panda's mouths aren't really made for that and—”

 

“Oh. My. God.” Jesse St. James has a drawl even colder than Santana's, which really should be all the warning she needs. “Like, do you even _know_ that you're retarded?”

 

The hallway freezes, the other students stop talking, but the one thing Santana needs, for time to slow down or maybe just _go backwards_ and rewind those words into his mouth, doesn't happen. If anything, everything seems to speed up. Colors are deeper, details sharper, like the paint flaking off of Brittany's locker or the way her collarbone is poking up under her Cheerio's uniform.

 

(No, she didn't, and that was the fucking _point_.)

 

Santana can't take her eyes off of Brittany's face as it crumbles in. Brittany's backpack is half-off and half-way to the locker and she doesn't _move_ , doesn't roll with the punch or blink or do anything but stare blankly at Jesse as her face goes slack and rubbery. Santana wants to scream at her, shake her by the shoulders and make her _do something_ , but then Brittany's eyes lock onto hers and oh. Right. That's her job.

 

She yanks her eyes off of Brittany and _well shit_ , everyone else has stopped moving too. Are a couple of them actually reaching for their cellphones? Not that it even matters, ben Israel is already there with his tape recorder out. At least St. James is starting to look (for the first time in his life, probably) a little uncomfortable with the audience.

 

Why does everything have to have gone so quiet?

 

She won't remember, later, what she said. She will remember wishing she had a baseball bat or something to drive her point home a little better. She will remember that every time she thought she'd run out of different ways to cut St. James up into a warning and a sacrifice she would see the dull look on Brittany's face and find something even worse to say. She will remember the way that beautiful, happy girl who never needed a drink disappeared. She will remember, most awfully of all, that one of those times Brittany had started crying, quietly, but hadn't seemed to realize it or gone to wipe away her tears.

 

_Of course she didn't know. I wasn't ever going to let her find out._

 

Brittany sniffs. Santana breaks. Tries to break Jesse's face, and of course _that_ is when a teacher breaks in and of course Santana is the one in trouble.

 

It isn't the first time Brittany breaks her heart, and it won't be the last. It will always be the worst.

 

*****

 

She's been going to the dance studio every day since she was five and she spends hours practicing in her room at night. She tells her mom she's doing homework after dinner, and then nobody knocks on her door for the rest of the night or tells her to turn down the music that “helps her study.” Brittany lets the bass push down her legs and then she points her toes and goes for it.

 

(The thing about dancing is that she goes for it and always gets it.)

 

Her first dance class, Ms. Haley had told them to try to stretch out and feel their entire arm suspended in air. This had confused Brittany—she was never entirely sure she _had_ arms all the time, didn't really remember they were there unless she was looking at them. Most of the time she felt her lips, if she was talking, and her feet if she was running around out of her shoes, and maybe a hand holding onto her mom or her ponytail tickling the back of her neck. The rest of her body was just a giant gap, and if she paid attention to one part then the rest disappeared.

 

When she tried to explain this all of the other girls had laughed, but Ms. Haley had knelt beside Brittany with a whoosh of chalk and rosemary and frowned thoughtfully. She lifted Brittany's arm herself and let it go, watching as it wavered in the air. She smiled softly.

 

“You're going to be a great dancer, sweetie. I have special instructions for you, okay? Don't try to feel anything. Don't think, don't remember. Just reach out until you can touch the music.”

 

Brittany trusted her. She stretched out, went for it, and felt music notes wrapping through her fingers as she turned into paint and flowed everywhere, and then she couldn't stop laughing.

 

Ms. Haley smiled. “Want to know a secret, Brittany?” she whispered. Brittany stretched out a leg to see if it worked there, and when it did she grinned and nodded, eyes huge. “The trick to remembering you have a body is forgetting to be trapped in there at all.”

 

In her bedroom, Brittany turns the music up, stops trying to track or remember anything at all, and reaches out with her fingers and toes. The music shimmers over her skin and, piece by piece, Brittany puts herself back together.

  
 

 

[Part 2](http://crown-of-weeds.livejournal.com/1145.html#cutid1)

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Sing Me A Song Of Forgetting** (2/2)

**Title** : Sing Me A Song Of Forgetting  
 **Author** : Crown Of Weeds  
 **Rating** : R? For the most awful smut scene ever, probably (this part). Language.  
 **Word Count** : 7779, total. Part two is 5356.  
 **Spoilers** :Through 2.16. Speculation about Brittany's extra-curricular activities based on the promo for 2.17  
 **Pairings** : Brittany/Santana, Brittany/Artie, Brittany/Kurt  
 **Warnings** : Brittany is characterized as having Bad Brains, and the other characters can occasionally be ableist assholes.  
 **Disclaimer** : I don't own _Glee_ , nor do I own _Next To Normal_ from which I have taken the title. I put them back when I'm done, and I don't make any money off of anything ever.

**Summary** : _Red leather catsuit_ , she thinks. _Spiky heeled boots._

[Part 1](http://crown-of-weeds.livejournal.com/958.html#cutid1)   


 

Brittany knows damn well what people usually mean when they tell a boy and a girl to “use protection,” but she's never made out with a gay guy before, and it's kind of throwing her off her game.

 

She's just re-decided that Kurt is definitely still Capital-G-Gay, and that's fine, whatever, it's actually kind of nice to know that she had been right before. But she's not quite sure why he's making out with her then. It probably has something to do with the way he's playing dress-up this week. It's kind of annoying how seriously he's taking it; Brittany agrees with Kurt that flannel feels really nice between your fingers, but she keeps hitting her head on his stupid cap and he snaps at her for the first time ever when she tries to take it off.

 

“No! Britt. Leave it.”

 

His voice is a lot higher than it has been this week. More normal. It also sounds a little bit scared, which is, again, more normal, but Brittany likes it even less than usual now that she knows the terror isn't always there.

 

“Why are you playing dress-up if it just makes you scared and mad?” She doesn't mean to sound so annoyed. She's just been really spiky ever since Jesse...ever since that. She's _not_ , she's _not_ retarded, that's a horrible name to call anyone and besides, how can she be if she knows that Kurt trying to be normal for once means something is horribly wrong?

 

(No one has to know that Becky was the one who pointed it out to her, squinting at Kurt as he tried to imitate the rolling walk of the other boys while making his way across the cafeteria to their table that morning. “There is something weird about Kurt now,” she'd announced, poking dubiously at her Master Cleanse. “He's not very good at it.”

 

Brittany had slipped Becky a butterscotch under the table and taken a harder look at Kurt. “Yeah, you're right,” she remarked. “Normal clothes, normal walk. I don't think he's been in the dumpster once this week.”

 

“What the hell,” muttered Becky. Once she put it like that, Brittany had to agree. It was just _wrong_.

 

“What are we swearing at?” growled Kurt, and Brittany reminded herself firmly (again) that he wasn't mad, just talking funny— _normal—_ again.

 

“Hi Kurt.” Becky frowned at his salad. “We're swearing at you, and your salad has croutons, which you know isn't allowed.”

 

Kurt didn't know whether to sound gruff or light when he laughed, so Brittany thought for a second he was wheezing until she remembered that he didn't have asthma or any allergies. Being Coach Sylvester's team medic had its advantages. Kurt cleared his throat and straddled the seat next to Brittany. “I brought it to split three ways, so I'm thinking it'll be okay,” he offered. “Although I'm not sure I want to share with people who are swearing at me. Boo?”

 

Hell. Now that Becky brought it up, Brittany couldn't stop seeing all of the _weird, super weird_ things Kurt had been doing that week. “Why aren't you sitting with Mercedes?” she asked. Brittany liked sitting with Becky better than sitting with the other Cheerios—as much as she liked Santana, she didn't like how mean she got when the other Cheerios were sitting at the table, sneering and starving—but Kurt had always joined Mercedes at the Cool Kids Table since they made the squad. They did each others' nails and worked the gossip circuits, she thought, and none of the jocks gave Kurt so much as a look so long as he stayed in uniform and Santana sat on his other side. Tina, Artie, and Rachel sent them annoyed looks from their corner, but Kurt had never given any indication of ever wanting to leave that spot until he showed up out of uniform and in a puffy vest. (What the hell, _why_ hadn't Coach Sylvester stuffed him back into uniform yet? The one time Brittany had forgotten hers she'd been sent back home in tears.)

 

Now, apparently, Kurt had decided that part of being a good boyfriend was eating lunch with his girlfriend and making friends with her friends. It was nice of him, nicer than most of her boyfriends, and it meant that he'd started looking at Becky with something less like a mixture of disgust, confusion, and horror on his face, which was also awesome, because Becky was _awesome_ and Brittany thought Kurt was about two days away from offering to give her a makeover, which was how you knew he liked someone.

 

Or at least it used to be, except for that time with Rachel. But that was because of Finn, right?

 

_Hey_ .

 

Becky jabbed him with her plastic fork, crouton speared threateningly. “She asked you a question, Hummel.” Kurt looked confused—she was sure about that face, she wore it a lot. Except not right then, because  _hello, she got it now_ . 

 

“I wanted to sit next to my _girlfriend—_ ” he started, but Brittany cut him off. 

 

“Hey, so you remember when you made Rachel look like a whore? That was _hilarious_ , right, but she stopped wearing your corsets after a while and got really mad at you, and it was because Finn doesn't like hot girls, right? Well I don't think he likes guys, either.”

 

Kurt didn't move for a second, and then he started blinking very fast. Brittany hoped he wasn't having a petit mal seizure or anything. He'd get kicked off the squad. “In fact,” she added when he didn't say anything, “I'm sure of it. I think I was his first kiss, and he  _definitely_ got a—”

 

“ _Brittany_.” Kurt's voice was back to normal again. She liked it better that way, except for the yelling. Funny, though. When he stopped yelling his voice was back to that tobacco-chewing growl. “Just. Just stop talking for a second, please.” 

 

Becky swallowed the crouton and went for a cherry tomato. “He hasn't been slushied at all this week,” she noted. Kurt's faced twitched and Brittany couldn't ignore her duties any longer.

 

“Kurt, are you epileptic? You didn't say so on any of your medical forms, but if you're trying to hide it—”

 

“What? No. No, I'm not, why would you even—where did you—how?”

 

“You face keeps moving all over the place, and it's just as weird as the rest of you this week. Epilepsy would explain almost all of the symptoms,” explained Brittany patiently. Kurt stared at her for a very long moment. _Possible absence seizure?_

 

“Becky,” he asked, never taking his eyes off of Brittany, “How would you like a makeover?”)

 

Brittany's not quite sure why, but the memory of how Kurt had successfully distracted her with his sudden embrace of Becky and unexpectedly soon critique of her look...stings, a little. A lot, actually. She can't quite separate it out, Becky's grin and Jesse's words and the way he can just make her  _forget_ , and they are all melting together back where she's pushed them away in her brain.

 

_Kurt_ _was going to be a different kind of boyfriend_ , she thinks sadly.  _He wasn't going to make me forget. Or, if he did, then he was going to make it okay, like Santana._ Kurt wasn't supposed to be the standard boy, scared and a little bit mean but mostly (Santana says) stupid, distracting her with lollypops and new bracelets until she gave them a thank-you-blowjob and they went on their way. (Then Santana would tell her the bracelet was too cheap and she should break up with him, so she would because that was better than thinking about how her face must look when they gave her candy, and when would they connect that face with Becky's, and would that moment happen with her mouth around their dick, and what then?) Kurt was never, never supposed to try and trick her—and tricking her with her friends, that was worse than tricking her with jewelry or even peeps—and she wasn't supposed to feel like just another part of this week's costume. Couldn't he at least have picked a costume he  _liked_ ? 

 

“Britt,” and he sounds so suddenly tired and his voice is all normal again, except thin and a little shaky, “can we...can we not talk about my clothes right now? Can we just keep doing this? Please? It...it means a lot to me.”

 

He sounds so sad. Not mad, not even scared, not confused anymore, just sad. But hey, Brittany knows how to fix sad.

 

“Hey. Yeah. Sure,” and she leans down and makes encouraging noises and nudges him into something gentle and rhythmic. Putting Kurt back together is awfully hard, but she thinks she might be doing an okay job when he asks her about boy-lips. His eyes are closing again, his muscles relaxing under her, and then all of a sudden his dad is downstairs and talking about _murder mystery dinners, the fuck_ , and Kurt is like an icicle, draping stiffly over her and talking like he should have a toothpick between his teeth, and his dad just looks really confused.

 

_We could form a club_ , she thinks.  _The Kurt-Is-Confusing Club. The hell is a murder mystery dinner, anyways?_

 

Mr. Kurt's Dad is telling Kurt to “respect her” which, okay, what does that even mean?  _Respect_ ? And then he's telling them to “use protection” and nothing is making any sense anymore because  _seriously, if you think we're having sex then maybe you are the confused one Mr. Kurt's Dad_ , but Kurt has been so scared lately and his dad was talking about murder and he did kind of just barge in so Brittany feels totally justified in turning to Kurt, a little fed up with all his damn tricks, and asking

 

“Does he mean, like, a burglar alarm?”

 

*****

 

Brittany is really, really tired of going to all of these different doctors all of the time. She's only eight, and she isn't even _sick_ , and they test her reflexes but they also ask her a lot of questions. They give her really impossible puzzles and video-tape her while she plays with their toys and make her look at cards covered in squiggly pictures and it's _boring_ and sometimes it means she missed dance classes, which is never okay. Most of the time she just misses school, though, which is always okay. It actually started at school, she thinks, when Ms. Shean pulled her out of class and asked her a bunch of weird questions about imaginary words and math and wouldn't let her count on her fingers.

 

Whatever, she hates going to see all these doctors, they aren't even real doctors, there are no stethoscopes involved, and when Santana asks if she wants to play doctor Brittany throws her barbie at her head and tries to remember that if she throws a tantrum Santana won't want to be her friend anymore. She bites her lip really hard and works on remembering the right words that will make Santana understand that she just got _back_ from another visit, and her mom cried in the car for half an hour before she started driving home, and the doctors kept listing letters that didn't go together at all, like 'I' and 'Q', and mixing them up with numbers, and _no_ , she doesn't want to play doctor. Santana just laughs and picks up the thrown Barbie to poke Brittany with.

 

“No, silly. Not _that_ kind of doctor. I mean _playing doctor_. Like we used to when we were younger, remember?”

 

Brittany does remember, in fact. She liked that game. It felt nice. Why did they ever stop? She thinks that it was Santana's idea. It was also a stupid idea.

 

They have a lot of fun until Brittany's mom finds them and starts screaming and says Santana needs to go home.

 

Afterwards, when Brittany is trying for the fifth time to explain that they were just playing doctor like they used to, her mom gets tears in her eyes and asks Brittany if she is interested in medicine. Brittany agrees, since it seems like the right thing to say and she does really like that game and cold medicine tastes awesome and she would like to know _why_ the fake doctors keep asking her to do weird things and maybe if she were a real doctor she could tell them to stop being so stupid. She doesn't get to go into her reasons, though, because her mom sweeps her up into the tightest hug she's ever had.

 

The next day she starts going to a different room with a new teacher for reading and math, but when she gets home there is a stack of DVDs and books about the human body and her mom lets her stay up late to watch the hospital shows on TV. It's actually really cool stuff, and her mom is spending a lot more time with her, reading the books to her and buying sheep hearts so she can play with them and answering all of her questions as if they are smart and important. Her mom even makes flashcards of all the different doctor words, and Brittany actually likes these flashcards and learns the long, fancy words much more quickly than she learns the ones she has to practice at school. The first time she tells her mom that she's experiencing patellofemoral pain after a dance class she gets an extra-big strawberry ice cream cone while her mom smiles fiercely and mutters something about _diagnosis, not destiny_.

 

It's a whole month before she realizes that she misses Santana, and another two before she works out that _Santana's dad is a doctor, mom, she should come study with us I bet she knows a ton!_

 

She doesn't, but Brittany likes being smarter than her and it's nice having Santana in her house again. She thinks that if she sticks to studying medicine, instead of playing doctor, she'll never leave. And hey, Brittany hasn't had to see another doctor since she started studying to be one, so she doesn't think she'll ever stop.

*****

 

Kurt is really, really annoyed about a lot of things right now, but probably the biggest one is that _someone needs to give Brittany a sex talk, and it's going to be him_. It's not fair at _all_ , and he blames it on the fact that his regular, stress-reliving routine of manicures and moisturizing has been thrown off this week and so his brain is tense and unhappy and is therefore devoting all of its energy _not_ to you-don't-have-to-fake-straight-any-more-yay but _instead_ to your-fake-ex-girlfriend-is-going-to-be-preganant-and-diseased-soon-if-not-already. _Get off of my runway_ he hums sourly to himself as he marches down the hall, maybe flouncing just a tiny bit to make sure he still can, and he wonders if he can get angry enough to convince Santana to do the dirty work for him.

 

Santana doesn't seem impressed by his show of rage. She has a sharp, sour look on her face that he's seem before. Always directed at boys looking at Brittany. Which is stupid. This is stupid. He's _gay_. He doesn't _need_ this. “Seriously, Santana. She thinks protection is a home security system. She could get pregnant. Brittany can't raise a child. _Think_.”

 

“She can't get pregnant, okay, so _back the fuck off_ and go back to trying to screw Hudson. I hear he's got a thing for cheerleaders and no boobs, so you should be set.” Kurt wonders what she would do if he just applied his bottle of hairspray directly to her eyes. Probably something that would be bad for his skin.

 

“What do you mean she can't get pregnant? She's a girl. I know you are _very_ aware that she's a girl, but you do realize that she's discovered that there are things she can do with guys that she can't do with you _holy hell let go that's a limited-edition_!”

 

“She try any of those _things_ with you, Hummel?” Santana's voice is light and airy, disinterested, but her fingers are curled dangerously into his jacket and someone help him, Kurt is actually afraid. He's scared enough, and confused enough about why the hell he's scared, to not pay attention to what comes out of his mouth next.

 

“Of course not. Well, I mean, she maybe _tried_ , but I wouldn't have sex with _Becky,_ so I didn't think it was appropriate. I mean, I'm a method actor and all, and Becky looks fantastic in some of the new clothes, but there's a certain moral line, you know? Oh. You let go, thank you.”

 

Santana looks very far away, and Kurt almost turns to go somewhere with better lighting and examine the damage to his jacket. He remembers, though, that he hasn't actually solved anything, so he pushes on. “I still don't understand how she won't get pregnant, though. Not every guy in school cares about the mental age of whomever he's fuck—”

 

“She's on birth control, genius. She takes mine. Now, okay, you've done your good deed for the year. Such a brave little homo, sticking up for his beard. Very good. Go steal one of Berry's gold stars, just get out of here.”

 

He leaves. It's easier, and if he walks away with his back to her and focuses on his strut he doesn't see her blinking too much and chewing her lip.

 

_This time's for me_ .

 

*****

 

Santana panicked, really  _panicked_ , exactly once sophomore year, and of course, like all subsequent panic attacks, it was because of Brittany. For a very long time she tried to blame Kurt for it, but when she tried to bitch him out she realized that he was sitting on one of the  _chairs_ and she choked on her words and got the Eyebrow. 

 

So no. This panic was all her fault, because she had  _known_ that Brittany was having sex with guys, she had  _taught her how_ , but she hadn't really thought about it until Kurt had accidentally pointed out that it might, maybe, matter. 

 

“It's just sex!” she explodes, and Quinn raises her eyebrow and puts down her sheet music. 

 

“We're the only two here yet. Santana, so you're going to need to clue me into to whoever is in your head.” She frowns. “And, I hate to break it to you, but it's _not_ 'just sex'. It's never _just_ sex.”

 

Santana feels stupid for exactly half a second, and she blames most of it on the fact that she was confiding, however accidentally, in Quinn, and only a sliver of it on her insensitivity. Even that is more annoyance at her professional failing—she is never  _accidentally_ unkind. She feels stupid for half a second, and then a flash of panic because  _Brittany isn't here and she could be having sex right now with anyone_ , and then something like fury because Quinn just can't shut up.

 

“I'm guessing you're talking about Brittany, though, since you two are always attached and now you aren't and, well, the sex part.”

 

“I'm not talking about Brittany.”

 

“Finally feeling guilty for having sex with someone who is essentially six years old?”

 

“The fuck happened to this conversation?”

 

“The fuck happened to your conscience?” Quinn sounds so mild, so sweet, and she hasn't stopped smiling but Santana knows this routine and she is pretty sure that this time it needs to end with a punch to the face. Of course she can't even snarl properly before everyone tumbles in at once—and where the fuck were they two minutes ago when she needed someone, anyone else to talk to besides Quinn? Brittany comes in at the tail end and grabs Santana's hand with a grin, pulling her to the chairs and settling her head happily against Santana's shoulder.

 

Quinn smirks, and it matched the look St. James  _still_ has plastered beneath his curls, and Santana is done.

 

She waits, very patiently, for rehearsal to finish. She waits for everyone else to leave for home. She keeps Brittany happy and distracted by quizzing her from her newest medical dictionary, and when Mr. Shue raises his eyebrows at them she waves him on with a cheerful “we'll shut the door, Mr. Shue, she just wants to finish this page.”

 

He leaves, and Santana finishes the page and then she hands off the dictionary to Brittany and makes sure the shade is pulled down over the door's window and the lock on the handle is flipped. 

 

“Santana?” asks Brittany, looking up from her backpack, and then they are kissing and no one says anything for a while.

 

They are on the top riser, which means that Santana has to lay Brittany, slowly, gently, across three chairs instead of spreading her out on the floor. Brittany makes a soft, happy noise once Santana works out how to arrange herself between her legs, and Santana works her fingers under Brittany's shirt and kisses her way down to meet them. 

 

It isn't anything like playing doctor.

 

“You need to remember this, Brittany,” she hums against her throat. Brittany make a sound like assent and Santana lifts her mouth and slides her fingers down. “Every time a boy touches you I want you to remember _this_.”

 

“Like I could forget it,” Brittany mutters, but she stops sounding annoyed when Santana traces light circles over her panties. Santana keeps going, light and easy, feeling Brittany get wetter and wetter until finally she whines and makes a grab for Santana's hand. Santana laughs and pushes it away.

 

“Hey now. Relax. I've got you babe. Let me make you feel good. _Remember_ how good I make you feel.” She reaches up and pulls the panties down and uses her other hand to spread Brittany open. “Boys, they just want to stick it in you all the time, yeah? They don't care about how you feel, about how you like it, so long as they get off. But I? I know how to make you come. And I do. Every time. Don't I?” Brittany squirms, and Santana trails a finger down over her clit.

 

“God! Yeah, yes, you do.”

 

Santana smiles at that and starts to rub, playing with the different sound she can get out of Brittany. A few minutes roll by, and when Brittany bucks her hips and twists after an especially evil flick of Santana's fingers, Santana gets serious. She rubs harder, faster, and starts to talk again. “Listen to me, Brittany. This feels good, right?”

 

“Yesyesyesyes—”

 

“You like it?”

 

“Yes yeah oh god yes mhm.”

 

“Anyone else every make you feel like this?”

 

“No! Ahahah---no!”

 

“Are you going to remember this?”

 

“Ahhh, ohhh, yes, yes I'll remember Santana, yes I'll—don't stop, please, yes I'll remember!”

 

Santana does stop. She smiles at Brittany. “Good,” she says, and then she fucks Brittany into the chair until she shudders and arches and comes with a scream.

 

_You're right, Kurt_ , she thinks, smiling down as Brittany blinks up at her through her bliss.  _I wouldn't do that to Becky. But holy fuck does Brittany love it._

 

*****

 

Brittany Susan Pierce really does start out hating Britney Spears. It's not fair that Britney Spears can sing  _and_ dance  _and_ be sexy  _and_ be famous. It's not fair that she gets to have all of that in the first place, and it's especially not fair that she doesn't seem to have worked very hard for it. Brittany Susan Pierce can't even sing and dance at the same time—she tries, sure, but it's just so much to keep track of at once, and the breathing for dancing is different from the breathing needed for singing. 

 

Brittany Susan Pierce really does start out hating Britney Spears, but then she has an  _awesome_ dream, and another one that overlaps with Santana, and it works out kind of like the dentist. She's always hated dentists, like she hates every fake doctor, but Ms. P's boyfriend is super nice and gives her candy and in the end she makes an exception for him. So in the end, she decides that if Kurt got to pretend to be someone else for a week last year, she can too. She channels Britney Spears and imagines herself in red leather when she demands solos and  _gets them_ , and she  _totally rocks it,_ and maybe she can forgive Britney Spears after all.

 

Brittany is having complicated thoughts like this a lot lately. Santana has been meaner and moves around a lot more than usual. It reminds her of case studies she's read about akathisiac patients, but when she asks Santana if she's started taking atypical anti-psychotics Santana just laughs and gives her a hickey until she starts to forget to be concerned. 

 

Which isn't fair. This is  _important_ . “Hey, wait. Santana. No. Stop!”

 

Santana stops and pulls back, looking confused.  _It's not a good look for you_ , thinks Brittany, but then she realizes that she told Santana  _no_ .

 

Her mouth feels very dry.

 

Brittany tries very, very hard to remember the last time she said  _no_ to anyone, let alone Santana. She can't think that far back and she kind of wants to go throw up now because she doesn't think  _no_ is something she's supposed to say.

 

“What's wrong, Britt?” 

 

_Red leather catsuit_ , she thinks.  _Spiky heeled boots._

 

*****

 

Once Brittany discovers she can say _no_ she doesn't ever want to stop.

 

_No_ , Rachel, that look does  _not_ work.

 

_No,_ Becky, she wants to have cheese with her salad today.

 

_No,_ Mom, she doesn't have any homework anymore. Ever.

 

_No_ , they don't need to have another IEP meeting about that.

 

_No_ , she doesn't want to pray for Kurt's Dad. She'd much rather prepare a report about heart attacks, because doctors get confused sometimes.

 

_No,_ Santana, Brittany  _isn't_ going to stay exclusive or whatever if they can't even sing a duet.

 

Artie gives her a perfect way to say  _no_ , and as far as she's concerned she can just keep saying it for forever. The sex is nice, and she's kind of missed boys. Artie is nice, too, which is even better. He looks at her funny sometimes, but everyone does, and there is nothing funny about his face when he comes so it doesn't matter. Also she gets to ride around in his lap, which, awesome. It all definitely has an effect on Santana that just words hadn't, so Brittany counts it as a win and continues to investigate all the different ways she can say  _no_ .

 

She tries not to pay attention to the people she's saying _no_ to, because she's not mean, she's not Santana, (she's _retarded_ , remember, she can't be mean) and the way Rachel seems to crumble when Brittany discovers she can say no by _lying_ is way less awesome than this occasion calls for. Brittany doesn't have a publicist or an interview, but it's okay because she is _winning_ and she can say _no_ to anyone even when it's not true.

 

She should probably stick to lying, though. She tells the truth to Santana about six times in one week, and only the last time is a _no_ , and it doesn't work nearly as well as the others.

 

*****

 

The first time she hears Rachel's song, Brittany thinks _this sucks. Super depressing. I liked_ My Headband _much better._

 

_My Headband_ only made Brittany think about the things she could do with her hair now that she wasn't a Cheerio. It was exciting and fun.  _Get It Right_ made her hurt. She couldn't believe that she had agreed to miss ballet  _and_ hip-hop so that she could learn  _backup vocals_ , not even any dancing, for the most awful song ever written. 

 

Maybe it wouldn't have been so awful if Santana hadn't kept looking at her when Rachel belted about  _how much I care_ .

 

The song sucks, but Brittany can't get it out of her head. She learns it way too fast, so Rachel has her go on first with Tina when the girls show it to Mr. Shuester. He looks at them and his face seems way too awake and sad when he tells them it's “perfect.” Rachel bites her lip and nods sharply and they gather up their things and start for the door.

 

“I'm sorry,” he offers, and something in his throat jumps. Brittany adds it to the list of things she's trying not to think about.

 

At Regionals, Brittany lets the lights blind her and watches Rachel being braver than should be physically possible and she doesn't think about anything or anyone at all.

 

That Sunday, though, she drags her mom to Barnes and Noble so she can get the Indigo Girls CD she's missing and the new issue of  _TransWorld Motocross_ and a new copy of  _Grey's Anatomy,_ the one with the illustrated CD. Her mom is off looking at books about knitting and Brittany is bouncing on her toes in the checkout line, purchases tucked under her arm and credit card out, when she spots the shelf carrying  _Harry Potter_ toys.  _Oh cool, that movie's coming soon, isn't it?_ she thinks, and then she sees the Time-Turner necklace.

 

_(Can I start again,_  
with my faith shaken?  
Cause I can’t go back and undo this) 

 

_Oh hey. Yes I can. I totally, totally can._

 

The Indigo Girls CD and  _TransWorld Motocross_ issue are dropped on the table of fifty-percent-off books, and Brittany carefully selects the Time-Turner necklace that looks like it has the most and best magic. She tucks it carefully into the green plastic bag after she buys it, and holds it on her lap all the way home like a promise.

 

It takes a half-hour, three pieces of paper, her mom's calculator, and some help from her cat, but Brittany eventually works out that she's going to have to go  _really far back_ . She decides to just flip the Time-Turner over until she gets to the Friday before last with Santana, and then if she needs to she can keep flipping it over.

 

She changes into the clothes she wore that day and fixes her hair. Goes to the center of the room so she won't hit anything while she's Time-Traveling and puts the necklace around her neck. Starts turning it over and over and over.

 

Nothing happens.

 

Nothing changes, the room doesn't rush and spin around her and the colors don't blur. She can't remember how it worked in the movies—did all of that start happening after Hermione was done spinning?

 

She keeps trying.

 

Three times, she stops and waits to see if it's working. It isn't, so she goes back to flipping the hourglass on the necklace around and around. She changes its direction, but that doesn't seem to help.

 

She doesn't ever plan to stop trying, but her fingers start to hurt at some point and eventually they cramp and stiffen and it just all hurts so  _bad_ that when her fingers seize around the hourglass and stop moving she screams. She jerks the necklace off her neck and  _wow, that hurts_ , she can see why people only try that in the movies, and she flings it so hard into the corner that she thinks it scratches her wall but she can't really tell, can't really see through the tears.

 

She calls Kurt, and he sounds a little breathless when he tells Blaine to “ _stop_ that or your football jerseys are mine and you  _ know what that means _ ,” and oh, right, Blaine. Brittany had forgotten about Blaine.

 

“I just want to know, Kurt. I just want to know  _ why _ , because it doesn't make any, it doesn't make any sense.”

 

“Boo?”

 

“If I'm so damn good at forgetting, why can't I forget  __ this ?”

 

 


End file.
